Introduction to Volume 5

An overpayment occurs when the student receives more aid than he or she was eligible to
receive. One kind of overpayment, traditionally called an overaward, results from changes
in the student’s aid package; a second occurs when a student withdraws. This volume covers
how a school should respond when either of these types of overpayments occurs.

Here, we provide a summary of the changes and clarifications
presented in greater detail in the chapters that follow. Alone, the text
herein does not provide schools with the guidance needed to satisf-
actorily administer the Title IV, HEA programs. For more complete
guidance, you should refer to the text in the chapters cited, the Code
of Federal Regulations (CFR) and the Higher Education Assistance Act
(HEA) as amended:

Throughout this volume, new information is indicated with the
following symbol:

New
When the text represents a clarification rather than a change, it is in-
dicated with this symbol:

Clarification
When we believe that historically there might be some misunder-
standing of a requirement, we indicate that with:

Reminder
or

Important
Finally, if we want to point out a bit of helpful information we indi-
cate it with:

Major Changes
On February 8, 2006, the president signed The Higher Education
Reconciliation Act of 2005 (HERA). Effective July 1, 2006, HERA es-
tablished two new types of grants for certain Pell Grant-eligible college
students:

1. The Academic Competitiveness Grant (ACG), and
2. The National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain
Talent Grant (National SMART grant).
In addition, the HERA modified the way in which the Return of
Title IV funds are calculated. The majority of the changes we have made
this year to this volume are a reflection of the HERA.

Chapter 1 – Overpayments and Overawards
The law provides that a student’s ACG or National SMART
Grant, when combined with a student’s expected family con-
tribution and estimated financial assistance may not exceed the
student’s cost of attendance under section 472 of the HEA.
We have updated the text to reflect the way schools must re-
solve overawards containing ACT or National SMART Grant
funds.
We have added a section explaining how a resolved overaward
may become an overpayment if the student ceases attendance
before the end of the current payment period.
We remind schools that although HERA increased the de
minimus threshold for overpayments due to withdrawal, the
de minimus amount for all other overpayments remains less
than $25.
We remind schools that regardless of the type of loan (FFEL
or Direct) consolidated and no matter the type of consolidated
loan the student obtained, if a student has consolidated the
loan(s) that exceeded the annual or aggregate loan limit, he
or she is considered to have made satisfactory arrangements
to repay the debt, and no additional action on the part of the
student is required in order to regain Title IV eligibility when
the loss of eligibility was due solely to exceeding those loan
maximums.

5–
Introduction

Chapter 2 – Withdrawals and the Return of Title IV Funds
We remind schools that a student begins earning Title IV
funds on his or her first day of attendance, and that even if
a student withdraws before a school’s census date, the school
must perform a Return calculation using the number of days
or the number of scheduled clock hours the student attended
class as the numerator in STEP 2, Part H.
We updated the text to reflect the fact that the HERA:
1. has extended the number of days schools have to re-
turn funds from 30 to 45;
2. now allows schools to give students more than
14 days to respond to an offer of a post-withdrawal
disbursement;
3. changed the types of Title IV aid that must be
included in a Return calculation;
4. requires schools to include only scheduled hours
when determining the percentage of the period
completed by a student withdrawing from a clock-
hour program;
5. has modified the required notifications and
authorizations required before can make post-
withdrawal disbursements;
6. now limits the amount a student must repay to the
amount by which the original overpayment amount
exceeds 50 percent of the total grant funds received
by the student for the payment period or period of
enrollment;
7. changed the de minimus amount a student must
repay so that a grant overpayment of $50 or less will
not make the student ineligible to receive Title IV,
HEA program assistance should the student return to
school.
We provide new worksheets schools can use in performing
return calculations, tracking post-withdraawal disbursements,
and referring students to ED for collection.

Chapter 2 – Case Studies
As required, we have updated the case studies to reflect the
changes made by the HERA.